Gayle.

So you mustn't think my reply had any credibility? That's interesting. You must agree with the antiquated, beauty pageant, freak show comments? That's interesting also. Glad you enjoy the scene though. Which is really interesting, if the above is true. Many decades of dedicated, ethical people have made it possible for you enjoy the benefits of their dedication. I take exception to people who don't understand or respect that dedication by posting such trash talk in a Show forum at a pure breed site. The ignorance of your average joe in the pub? It happens. Although I find more interest than ignorance. Probably my breed though. Terriers do have a special appeal. ( & I'm not exactly a stranger to having a libation or six) Men in beacon suits with hairdresser dogs certainly do draw some curious comments I must admit. But hey, Live & let live. But why do they wear that stuff? Makes me cringe,just a little,I must admit. Just my thoughts. Smacka, you seem to be very defensive about dog shows and how they are perceived by outsiders. Do you not think they have a negative image? There are enough people come on here.....visitors to dog shows, first time showies, people interested in showing their dog or buying a puppy to show.....who tell of unhappy experiences, rude people at shows etc that there comes a time when maybe you need to agree that there could be some credibility in their statements. I doubt anyone goes to a dog show expecting people to be rude to them, or expecting it to be a confusing experience where it's impossible to figure out what's going on and no programs available to the public and no friendly face to ask. The first time I went, I was excited about going and seeing all the different breeds, but quite, quite puzzled when someone came up to me, stood staring at me for a long while then said bluntly "Never seen you here before, you don't look like you belong"....or something to that effect, then stalked off. The second time I went, I was with a friend from interstate who was showing her dogs in Melbourne and when her bitch won the challenge, I was very taken aback when one of her competitors swore at her and told her in no uncertain terms what she thought of my friends beautiful dog. I was there with my friend for the purpose of learning how dog shows worked before I jumped in with my own puppy and had a go. My friend said to me later "I wish you hadn't heard that." The topic is about falling numbers at dog shows. Yes they are falling. Rapidly. At the rate of about 100 per annum in Victoria. Why? Who knows, but pretending everything is hunky dory in the happy land of dog shows and that all the dedication of people who went before us is now giving us a lovely, friendly place to play on weekends probably isn't going to help the number of entries increase. Trisven doesn't post trash, by the way. Never has, as far as I know. She raises some very valid points too.

At my work , more than one person thinks dog shows are about dogs doing tricks.

For what it's worth, I've been entering this particular dog in joint names and addressing the SAE to me for the past 14 months or so. Even interstate clubs didn't have an issue with it.

Shazzapug, I wonder if it was the same secretary that re-addressed my envelope for me and wrote the stupid, snippy note about the kennel name that was nowhere to be seen. Give me a hint, if it was the same show there was a very obvious diference to other shows.

Poor dog! I always praise my boy no matter what. Even if he's been a wrigglebutt in the ring, he gets a pat and a "good boy!" as we leave the ring. I expect that bad losers at dog shows are bad losers everywhere. They are probably the same kids who'd tip the Monopoly board up cos someone else bought Park Lane. As an aside, I once heard a judge ream out a top showie over the way he spoke to his dog in the ring.

Oh ok, so the dogs are registered, they just won't be able to register the puppies. When I looked into getting Isaaks hips and elbows done, I got the impression the place reading the x-rays would only do so if a registered pedigree was supplied with the x-rays.

Actually it doesn't explain why breeders who do no health testing charge the same as those who do. One might also assume that if they skip the health tests on the parents, they also skimp on any screening tests that could be done to ensure the pups are healthy and robust.

Just out of curiousity, what breed and what health checks were completed? When I looked into hip and elbow xrays, the vets and xray readers require the dogs registered pedigree. So I'm now u der he impression that this is one health check you can't do unless your dogs are ANKC registered.

I'm staying at home. I'm about 20 minutes from Morwell. Ir will be nice to not have to get up at 4am for a dog show.

Here's some trivia from Wiki The American Kennel Club (AKC) recognized nine dog breeds when it was established in 1884. The nine breeds are: Chesapeake Bay Retriever Cocker Spaniel* Clumber Spaniel English Setter Gordon Setter Irish Setter Irish Water Spaniel Pointer Sussex Spaniel *The American Cocker Spaniel and the English Cocker Spaniel was registered as the same dog breed until 1946. Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_was_the_first_dog_breed_to_be_recognized_by_the_American_Kennel_Club#ixzz1cu9OOVdp

There wouldn't have been a first for the ANKC. I'd imagine they formed and then incorporated the breeds already recognised by the UK controlling body.

It's the excess I have a problem with....but then that's not just confined to Bassets, there are plenty of other breeds where the breed features are taken to excess and beyond. Beagles are scent hounds and very good ones I'm led to believe. Why do they not have loose skin and ears to the floor?

I do, I also have a black nylon slip lead I use but I keep going back to the snake chain, it just looks and feels nicer.

Lots and lots of Maltese x Shih Tsu's are multi-generational.

I think they've probably been a contributing factor but a lot of them were there well before numbers started to decline so rapidly and had no effect. It would be interesting to see the numbers for non-docked breeds and if they've fallen off dramatically as docked breeds have. I do think limited register has a lot to answer for.......puppies are immediately being taken out of the equation for breeding and new puppy buyers placed under immediate suspicion if they even breathe a word about wanting to eventually breed. I don't honestly think cost has all that much to do with it......people spending amazing amounts of money on completely stupid things, without batting an eyelid. If someone really wanted to show dogs, they'd find a way to afford it. Those here who've said cost is a factor are still showing......they might be showing less but they still find a way to afford the shows they do enter. I believe there is one other reason, but I'm not going to go into it here, wrong place to discuss my particular other theory.

As I said earlier, I don't believe it's the bitching the face judging, the opinions etc....because I think that's always been there. I believe the major reason for declining numbers is a huge decline in interest in the people of Australia in owning pedigree dogs. They've been told by TV "experts" that cross breeds are better pets and that's what they now buy. If there's a decline in owning pedigree dogs, it will flow on to a decline in breeding them, making them available to newcomers for breeding (with a justifiable worry that they may be used for cross breeding) which will then flow on to the showcase of the pedigree world, the dog show. It's happened very fast, it's still happening and by and large, the controlling bodies in the pedigree dog world are just letting it happen.

The photos of the KC Basset Hounds, especially the one in the stack position, take the wrinkled skin to the absolute max, don't you think? It's an interesting discussion, I tend to come down on the side of the Albany basset enthusiasts. At least their dogs look like they could do a days work, the examples of the KC bassets shown don't look like they'd be much good for anything except maybe racking up vet bills. I like basset hounds, they are a breed that's always appealed to me and I often watch them at dog shows. I think ours here aren't quite as extreme as the UK ones yet.

Yes, that makes sense to me too. But I think maybe we don't understand the rural mail system. The people at the general store know that it's only my husband and me, so a letter addressed to our last name and someone else, couldn't possibly be ours. To make matters worse, there is another family here with the same last name as us. So they need first names or at least initials to sort the mail correctly. When I send a self addressed envelope in my show entry, it's addressed in such a way that I will get it if it's posted. If someone changes the way I've adressed it, I mght not get it, it could be left sitting there, it could be given to the other people who have our name.

What sort of work do they do?

I would imagine the exhibitor is the person showing the dog, not the person who owns the dog, so one envelope per exhibitor should cover all the dogs that one person is showing even if there are 10 dogs owned by 10 different people but shown by one. In another thread I suggested stapling everything together before putting it in the envelope so the person opening the envelope know they all belong together, but apparently staples aren't desirable either. Where is that written? I checked the latest gazette and there's nothing in there about not using staples when sending off entries. To my mind, if they are opening the envelope then promptly getting stuff mixed up with other peoples, it stands to reason that having your own things clipped together with a staple means they can't get mixed up. Addressing the envelope to the owner of the dog then putting your address on it wouldn't work either, especially with rural postal services like ours....the mail is sorted by name and we collect it from the general store. It's not delivered by a postie, and if someone else's name was on it, I'd never receive it. In fact, the most recent one where the show secretary crossed out my name then wrote my last name and the co-owners last name on the envelope (which was originally addressed to me only) meant that I only got the mail the day before the show because it had sat there for days with no one knowing who it belonged to.

Whatever. The topic posted by the OP is this: Why Is It So why are numbers dropping off in the rings/shows and my comments are as valid as anyone else's.

Possibly. But that doesn't explain the snippy attitude of others who don't show the same breed, the impatience of club secretaries, the snide remarks you overhear when watching from the sidelines. It also doesn't explain the rudeness of dog show people to newcomers or onlookers, and although everyone seems to get defensive about it, there's more than a little anecdotal evidence to show that it's rife and it's not limited to any breed in particular. If you showed up at a herding trial to have a look to see what it's all about, you'd go away knowing more about it, having been welcomed by humans and dogs, you'd be offered a hot drink and a meal if lunch was on and you'd leave there all inspired to have a go at herding.

If ''In my opinion'' decided your herding results your comparison would be valid. But it doesn't, so it's not. I was referring to previous comments in this thread that "all sports are the same" when it comes to politics, bitchiness, nasty people etc. They aren't. And there aren't that many other activities where "in my opinion" decides the results. "In my opinion" coupled with no justification for the opinion....ie, no verbal or written critique or point scorecard, makes dog showing in a class of it's own. Even cat shows have judges giving verbal critiques about the cats, to justify their choice of winner. The fact that it's an activity involving dogs and big, mature, grown up people, competing for *something* makes it a very valid comparison.

Having a scroll through this thread and you'd have to wonder why anyone would want to start showing anyway, and why people do it in the first place. It's not true that all sports are like this......I've been competing in herding trials this year and it's so far from the dog show world that the only common denominator is the dogs. From my first day of training, I found it to be friendly and welcoming and there's no bitchiness in sight. No one cares about who bred who's dogs, or who's at what level......pedigree show dogs compete alongside registered mutts, on equal footing. Herding is something that's taken over some of the weekends I used to show, because the atmosphere at a herding trial, the togetherness of the competitors and the encouragement of the spectators makes you want to go back again.

Just check that she hasn't accidentally been quoted a door to door service. When I was looking to bring Shae from Perth to Melbourne, I used an online quote thing and it quoted me around $900. I nearly fell off my chair! But it was quoting door to door.....the breeders house to my house which is 3 hours from Melbourne airport. The breeder got a more acceptable quote of $305 from Jet Pets, and she flew here a few days later.